{"id":1456,"date":"2015-06-04T18:16:04","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T02:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2025-08-21T11:56:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:56:43","slug":"mad-max-fury-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/mad-max-fury-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Max: Fury Road – A Cinematic Masterpiece Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Nathaniel Dunaway\n Entertainment Editor<\/pre>\n
In 1979, Australian filmmaker George Miller released his feature-film debut: a dystopian action thriller entitled \u201cMad Max.\u201d The film starred Mel Gibson as Max, a role that would launch the then 23-year-old actor into stardom.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the 1970\u2019s oil crisis, in which oil prices skyrocketed, affecting millions of Australians in particular, \u201cMad Max\u201d (and its immediate sequels \u201cThe Road Warrior\u201d and \u201cBeyond Thunderdome,\u201d) follows Max, a lawman, and his travels through a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, where he encounters vicious motorcycle gangs, mutants, vengeance and driving. Lots and lots of driving.<\/p>\n
Miller had always planned a fourth film in the franchise, but the project remained in development hell for nearly 30 years. When it finally became a reality with the release of \u201cMad Max: Fury Road,\u201d this month, the response from fans and critics alike was virtually unanimous: it was worth the wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cFury Road,\u201d essentially a reboot of the series rather than a strict continuation, stars Tom Hardy (\u201cBronson\u201d) and Charlize Theron (\u201cMonster\u201d) as Max Rockatansky and Imperator Furiosa, respectively.<\/p>\n
The film begins with Furiosa, a badass, one-armed raider, leading a convoy of war rigs from the Citadel \u2014 a colony led by the film\u2019s antagonist, Immortan Joe \u2014 to Gas Town, a city with a monopoly grip on gasoline. Halfway to her destination, however, she veers off-road, thus setting the insane events of this insane film in motion.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, Furiosa is actually smuggling Immortan Joe\u2019s Five Wives (the women he keeps as \u201cbreeders\u201d) to safety. When the masked, deformed, and insane Joe realizes this, he leads a war party after Furiosa to retrieve his wives.<\/p>\n
If that description of the film sounds somewhat Mad Max-less, that\u2019s because it is, for the first act at least. Early on, Max is captured and serves as the \u201cblood-bag\u201d (an unwilling blood donor) to Nux, a Citadel raider played by Nicholas Hoult (\u201cWarm Bodies\u201d). Only after the first half-hour does Max cease being a passive character to whom things simply happen, and becomes the driving force of the film, when he decides to aid in the rescue of Immortan Joe\u2019s Five Wives.<\/p>\n
Still, Charlize Theron\u2019s Furiosa is constantly at odds with Tom Hardy\u2019s Max for the title of \u201cFury Road\u2019s\u201d true action hero. Max\u2019s name may be in the title, but it\u2019s Furiosa\u2019s mission that the audience invests in \u2014 first when she seeks to save the Five Wives, and later, when she seeks revenge on Immortan Joe, played terrifyingly by \u201cMad Max\u201d alum Hugh Keays-Byrne. Regardless, Furiosa will still inevitably go down as one of the great action characters of all-time.<\/p>\n
\u201cFury Road\u201d is filled to the brim with explosions, gunfire, fights, frenzy, and fun. It\u2019s an action film in the purist sense, in which the action serves as perfectly-executed exposition in the telling of a great story. It\u2019s never action for action\u2019s sake, never mindless or aimless.<\/p>\n
The title of \u201caction film\u201d has a sour connotation to some, suggesting a men\u2019s only club of overwrought violence and one-liners, but \u201cFury Road\u201d is about as far from Steven Seagal as you can get, mainly due to Imperator Furiosa, the epitome of the strong female hero.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s a scarred, battle-hardened fighter with no time for in-depth introspection or (and thank God\/George Miller for this) a love-interest. But the feminist themes don\u2019t stop there, with the story of the Five Wives\u2019 escape from the clutches of Immortan Joe serving as an allegory of sorts for the reproductive rights of women.<\/p>\n
Action doesn\u2019t always mean flame-spewing electric guitars and hand-grenade spears. It also means what the characters do, and in this film, what they do and what decisions they make are paramount. \u201cFury Road\u201d takes place over a frenzied three days of mayhem, leaving little breathing room and even less room for needless character arcs. What the characters do inform who they are, nothing more, nothing less.<\/p>\n
In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, the idea of a two-hour long film encompassing what is essentially a single car chase would come off as overdone and gimmicky, but in George Miller\u2019s hands, it\u2019s truly a sight to behold.<\/p>\n
So go out and behold it, as soon as you can. You\u2019ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n
4 paws out of 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
a mind-blowing addition to post-apocalyptic franchise Fury Road<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Mad Max: Deep Dive - The Western Howl","_seopress_titles_desc":"Relive the adrenaline-pumping action of Mad Max: Fury Road! Dive into this detailed review and explore why it remains a cinematic masterpiece. Read now!","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":"Jared Montgomery","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22869,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/22869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}